TheViper Plays Sicilians

hello youtube and welcome to a very unique age of empires 2 game i've had this youtube channel for six years and i've been doing my best to pump out content that entire time and every once in a while there's either a civilization that doesn't seem too strong or seems overly strong or a player who's playing a unique way and i really break that down and try and highlight what's going on and that's exactly what this video is you can see the title and uh viper one of the best players ever he is the undisputed goat in my opinion while there might be some dispute that he's the current best number one viper's been pulling around with strategies for years and he's notorious for that he's notorious for being a great player in tournaments but then in rated games he doesn't really care about high elo elo is not really a big deal to him he just wants to play have a good time i think in his eyes maybe experimenting can help him learn what's what's good and what's not in more competitive scenarios uh this is above a little rant about that's not really a rant but a little complaint about this which is not a big deal but this is fortress which historically has always been played with regicide it kind of bothers me that the devs introduced fortress to the rank to you but they didn't make it regicide i don't know it's not a big deal but i think it'd be a lot more fun for viewers to do that um you know especially mid and low elo players having that registered aspect and plus that's what you tend to see in tournaments but it is fortress there's no regicide there's no king to snipe we have the snake here in the blue playing as the sicilians which is a civilization which recently came out in the lords of the west campaign um and i'm actually i i realized that i could put a lot of time into editing this and whatnot but i've been up all night doing hidden comfort things so i'm actually going to do a quick little tabarooski here if you don't mind into the tech tree and out of capture age and these are the big things i want to touch on castles and town centers build 100 faster land military units accept siege weapons receive 50 less bonus damage farm upgrades provide 100 additional food which is insane and then the dungeons and the sergeants i'll get to but first crusade and scootage to unique technologies also very helpful and you can see their bonuses right there just in case you didn't know i don't want to stay in here too long and you know you guys came to watch a game right so let's make that happen let's play and we'll be back in the match um so anyways sicilians and bulgarians came out and i actually uploaded some videos about that before there was a lot of competitive play happening and these players are just going fast castle you start with a bunch of stone walls and villagers in this map so it's all about fast castling so nothing really to touch on right now um and so you know the burgundian unique unit and i will have videos on the burgundians too soon it seemed pretty janky and then the devs nerfed it but even before that i didn't feel like burgundians were top tops here in competitive settings maybe on a map like this believe it or not but otherwise it just seems kind of meh and then sicilians after playing with them and watching them be played at a high level i also felt like yeah this civ also isn't in my top 10 in most situations and so i think viper you know he recognizes that of course he's he's a capable player and when you recognize the the weaknesses and the strengths of a civilization you then have to try and nail down the time windows for a lot of things and viper here is up against yo uh yoast had a very good record against him recently actually in various show matches and whatnot over the past year excited to see both of these players playing in hidden cup 4 march 18 through the 21st nice little segue there hope you're going to be there youtube but like of course we won't know who is who we might have a good guess but they'll be playing on crazy accounts but anyways huns the civilization if you're talking time windows that tends to take map control in the mid game that's where all their bonuses really start to shine in the mid game a lot of sieves need to make houses huns don't need to do that in the mid game the cav archers are discounted and very cheap for hunt so they can flood the cav archers their stables work a bit faster and on a map that is essentially arena as we zoom out here with uh capture age you could just play this like arena and maybe make some scouts to take map control it's kind of hard to see on the map itself but if you look at the minimap you can clearly see where those relics are so you look at the sicilian tech tree there's nothing too exciting about them it's usually those unique texts and i will again have videos soon where doubt plays sicilians on an open map and i get to show you what what sicilians are capable of on an open map but first crusade being the first unique tech when you researched that it's now seven dungeons uh or sorry snow seven sergeants uh your unique unit that spawn from a maximum of five tcs and then the scootage upgrade uh converts all of your food into gold that's also a tech that that has a purpose at a certain time but will viper be able to to do well against the huns i've always felt like that first crusade technology is a lake castle age type deal yes he's going to have the protection as viper's making his buildings click up uh to the castle agent so will mr yo in a second but um but yeah anyways what we'll see right i don't want to spoil exactly what happens but really interesting approach in this game very well played by both players now most people watch my youtube content um you guys you've got you got busy lives right and many of you might not watch my content all the time it's kind of weird for me because i'm someone who only does age of empires and has only ever done age of empires but occasionally i branch out and i do watch some other things and i know most users most people who watch videos are not just watching age of empires content that is not to say that if you only watch age of empires content you're you're bad all right not judging that's great for me but um anyways the point is here like i recognize a lot of you watching might not watch my videos all the time that's just that's just a fact um the math doesn't lie on that so i am going to use these moments especially this being a good game and this being a dull game currently leading up to some interesting moments to just say i am um i've been spending a great deal of time putting effort into the hidden cup uh which is march 18th through the 21st it's a four-day event and the only reason we were able to to reach the records we did march of 2020 was because of people like like you listening who had interest and stopped by um as someone who once never used twitch before and never stopped by a live stream it was a kind of a weird thing right i'm gonna have a lot of uploads telling you guys like what to expect and what you'll find there'll be bunch of giveaways things there and so anyways this is essentially as we get down to the nitty-gritty talking about viper's approach here with with the sieve me asking keep it in mind um many people found age of empires with hidden cup three and they were like man i wish i would have been around there when it was live you know and so uh if whatever your motivation might be whether it's not wanting to regret not being there or just uh you know um just wanting to watch some great age of empires and hopefully i can see you there not see you there will hopefully be a decent amount of people where i can't see every individual name but got some crazy plans and that's all i'll say for now all right viper starting to make use of a few bonuses pretty soon right here tc builds 100 faster compare that to yo it wasn't even in cass lane yet but yo is going to add a tc and viper's going to have that second town center pumping for a while now this is kind of how i see sicilians it's a bunch of tiny little bonuses nothing that really jumps out at you except for that first crusade upgrade even their tech tree there's nothing that wows you and makes you think dang this is crazy strong so keep an eye on the ville counts which is the bottom bar here viper with the ville lead just because of the boomy approach now yo is going to do something which is more arena-like and i mentioned this earlier he invested into a stable to make scouts that way he can patrol the map and control for relics and then also out of the monastery so that right there if you add that wood cost up is something that he could have also invested into the third pc so he's he's choosing to go two tcs and the scouts as you see him attacking viper here and then he's also going to go out and get some relics so it's it i can't even say it's high risk high reward as joe makes a mistake to go in here rip to that scalp but in all fairness he didn't really know what was what was behind there but uh viper will take that but yeah like yoho's approach is i'm going to take map control eventually with huns so let's just get the relics and relics give you a trickle of gold so long term hunt should be better off he probably also feels as though sicilians are not all that strong yeah viper's farms captured doesn't really show up but i'm going to tap into the actual game real quick um 564 food on this farm i mean that bonus from sicilians is insane and you really start to feel it with your wood count around well in this game probably around 20 minutes because that's typically when farms are going to be receding with any other sieve but if your farms last a long time you're floating a lot of wood which means you can make production buildings or just make more farms so it can lead to a really strong economy the viper not make additional scouts you just got this scout here you can see already that he's got a pretty decent village going for himself mr yo just chasing down viper scout again kind of uneventful right now but all this stuff is really important viper investing into the economy and now he's probably racking his brain like what on earth do i do against the huns this is yo scout he's just camping he sees viper scout in there i don't know if he's checking but viper hiding the monk and healing up the scout and here he comes now to take a fight viper will also threaten yo with a conversion does not get the conversion yo is saying okay that monks now left the gate i can actually show you what's going on behind there with this cap straight which is pretty cool because joe's doing the right move to send in another scout but viper senses this he's thinking hmm this isn't going to be great this is what you can actually see and look at that that was great play from viper and he's going to be really unfortunate if he doesn't get a conversion there and i monk rng is just all over the place man i've seen that conversion given so many times but viper does not get the convert and mr yo three tc's at home 47 villagers did get wheelbarrow and viper without wheelbarrow yep but 56 villagers about a 10 villager lead he's now gonna send his scout over and as viper sends his scout over to get the kill joe sends in two scouts to get the kills and mr yo also does not get the conversion three holy men died they didn't deserve that but currently the rel account is just one zero for yo i think there's got to be one yeah this one out here it's got to be on the way back did life have that scouted earlier i think viper might have had that scouted so he's looking for the monk he just misses the monk yeah he's looking around he's really got some good value out of that starting scout i have to say and i'm very unfortunate still not able to see it viper and it looks like he might not find it at all so we talked about the first crusade upgrade and first crusade is a unique tech you need to research out of your castle um but let's think about how that works you research first crusade let's say best case scenario you have five town centers this viper goes in here to get a monk doink joint and one more got him all right viper will take that i suppose as yo comes forward with the siege workshop but um but anyways uh you need a castle right but let's say you you get that technology in you you get uh what is five times seven is 35 sergeants for free that's a slow infantry unit on a map with stone walls you produce them they're just going to be battering on the walls especially now yo has been kind of mixing some cav archers i mean you're not going to have a ton of success with that strategy right so as i was you know watching this game this viper creates a sergeant here it is it's i'd say an underwhelming unique unit until you get elite they're pretty damn strong but um i'm just trying to think of what the approach would be here right now viper at this point after losing the scout he doesn't really know what's going on out here he's not seen cav archers he has not seen siege yet and i really like the approach for mr yo because he's up against sicilians and sicilians can take map control lake castle with that first crusade push mr yos got the relic so this is a situation where being aggressive is good because if it doesn't work out you're at least forcing reaction from the viper and then viper's gonna try and take all that map control behind it now this is one of many ways that viper has used the sicilian bonuses to his advantage and i really don't think like there is very few players out there who would use this approach now it's it's likely that you're probably not going to see sicilians picking hidden cove for if you do see sicilians picked in hidden cove four it might be someone like viper maybe someone like doubt who's been experimenting with them and i've prepared a strategy but like point is is viper he's one of many really good players but he is one of the few good players who would go for this approach and it really just my jaw dropped a little bit when i saw how this started to work out despite yo's you know amazing performance and and yo choosing to make the what i would see is the correct decision okay so yo is knocking on the gate here just one ram all he needs he's got cav archers he can kill everything viper has right now piper has a castle on this side he's got tc's here he could lose some houses but he's not going to lose all that much i remember we talked about the viper taking advantage of the fact that the sicilian town centers go up a bit faster well here viper is factoring in that sicilian castles build 100 faster now i think this is a real balance problem that is too fast but seeing as sicilians don't feel overall very strong nice microphone viper there like in other ways which i'll get to later on maybe this is something that's going to have to stick his viper's just going to run forward look at mysterio mr yo is on the way to imp this is his point of view he can see that he could make cav archers he could send his cavalry's over as uh vipers just use some sergeants to try and take out a ram pretty underwhelming right but anywho as the ram and the sergeants go down mr yo can't get over here fast enough i mean there's only five villagers building this castle right now and it goes up insanely fast and viper is now in the imperial age and he's going to build forward town centers making use of the unique tech um so again it's it's seven sergeants created instantly from five tc's again it doesn't really feel like age of empires they have instant creation doesn't really feel like age of empires to have forward tc's i think yo might have paused right there to check the tech tree but yeah viper just made these forward tc's so he can have them after the unique deck but first he's going to go for elite sergeant and well these things are a little bit like samurai where they're not that strong until you get a lead remember the sergeants can also create dungeons and you can create more sergeants from the dungeons dungeons like a mini tower viper sees all five relics in that monastery he says thank you very much give me all right he has a lead sergeant now the base attacks 11 the pierce armor is eight which is pretty sick against cav archers for now until all the cavalry upgrades start coming in right now the attack only is eight for yo's cav archers and you'll see just how weak they are against the sergeants and viper was just happy to take out that monastery just to the relics eject it was gonna make another one knowing how important that is and yo is really under pressure and first crusade is about to complete i'll zoom out a little bit and ready and point instant growth of viper's military numbers he had a seven or eight now he's at freaking 42 so the units in and of themselves it's not like a paladin you know it's not like a manga die think of any unit in age of empires that you consider really strong sergeants don't impress me all that much but what impresses me is the positions that viper's been able to take using the bonuses of these civilizations for this civilization excuse me chemistry on the way heavy cav archer even on the way that attack is going to do wonders for the cav archers and keep an eye on the kd here because the kd's gonna start to climb but also keep an eye on the idle time mr yo will have quite a few idols if he wants to save them also trying to get this relic right now which is kind of funny you know pretty soon this would be heavy cav archer yo still missing upgrade that i'm curious to see how quickly these sergeants go down now i mean the unit what's it 80 hp 75 hp it's not the most expensive unit seems to be doing quite well you're starting to see the kd shift a little bit yo has a lot of cav archers you know trying to get this relic back to his monastery it was a good move from him to do this get it back there as fast as possible because he feels like he's going to be able to hold in this area now look at what viper's doing piper's got some sergeants he's splitting up to raid on this side viper also is sending sergeants over on this side so it's not just a one-focus type game really is spreading out the sergeants and maybe you know maybe i'm starting to take my opinion back a little bit in the sergeants they do really seem to be doing well this dungeon just a bit of security for this area over the relics i suppose for viper who made a forward monastery already has one of the two or sorry three remaining relics and viper running in through the gate here nifty little move says thank you very much and i i wouldn't be happy to be a sergeant because viper seems happy to throw them away but the way that viper's been able to to use the numbers here and just split up his units has really it's it's pinned yo back yo using his trebuchets protecting his trebuchets goes kd maybe it's not as impressive as i thought it would be it's around 50 to 50. viper just wants those relics if he can get those relics away from yo and this goes late game viper could consider researching scootage which trans it's it uh changes all of his food into gold now that's quite nice when you're sicilians and your farms are gonna bring you a lot of food right do you wanna wait as long as possible i am getting that correct right sorry noob caster all these new ships i just want to make sure i'm not okay we don't want freaking huns come on here bro caster oh i got it wrong wait no i didn't get it wrong i i did get it wrong did i confuse it with burgundians i'm so oh i got it i i'm sorry it's similar okay i i was talking about burgundians we'll touch on that in another video scootage is each team member receives a one-time payment of 15 gold for each military unit that they own so instead of waiting until you have a lot of food instead what viper would do is wait until he has a lot of military units whoops a daisies still something that when he's starting to spam some like have now might make sense for him might be a realistic thing for him and viper actually i think he saved the monk a moment ago sorry i got sidetracked i don't know the monk just died still trying to get these relics away dungeon's not the most impressive building in the world it's uh 2200 hp it really looks stronger than it is but still viper happy to just drop them and hinyo in which is pretty incredible right pretty incredible focus to be able to do that it's wild how you can create sergeants from a dungeon and then dungeons can create more now sergeants can create more dungeons i mean now back to my point earlier in this video imagine if this was regicide there'd be a king out there the viper could snipe it'd be so fun and so i was as i was watching some of this go down i was beginning to think eventually mr yoshi's gonna run out of gold right he's making primarily cav archers the cav archers seem to be doing a good job hyper just building dungeons everywhere it's full control for the snake you want to know what these red dots are by the way there's they're scouts and a monk they've been on the mini map for a while but this is also where this is why i don't see sicilians as a top 10 civ or maybe even close to that like sicilians can make use of their bonuses we've seen first crusade we might see scootage at some point but there's a drop-off and that drop-off has just come in for the viper the civilization does he doesn't have the best archer line doesn't really have the best infantry line they don't get a hussar just like cav so like if sergeants aren't ever realistic if first crusade doesn't do enough to win a game you've got to use the economy aspect like the fact that the farms last way way longer than most civilizations and then maybe the unique tech in scootage and viper's going to scoot his monk all the way back home which is very wise as this monastery could go down and mr yo a beast like game player is starting to push back the dungeons and the population is 150 to 160. this div kind of reminds me of i mean there's various aspects that are different but if you know your sieves well sicilians kind of remind me of malay malay options in late game are not all that strong and they have elephants that lack a bunch of armor upgrades they have arbalest they have bombard cannon but you know cav isn't a strong option and then the two-handed swordsman only cost food which is nice but they're still two-handed swordsmen right two engines horsemen will get wrecked by cav archers and get wrecked by um paladins i mean it just comes down to the cost of things and the resources you're able to save with their bonuses there's many differences between malay and many differences between sicilians but that's kind of where they fit in my eyes is those just camping the ranges and yo is the population lead right now so viper's got crazy production buildings out here and if you watch hidden comfort notice how viper tends to space out his buildings he always has that one tile gap not that others don't do that but in hidden cup you never know who's playing you're trying to guess as you go along piper's just hoping that he can trade against eo's gold units and here he comes with the skirmishers unfortunately sicilians do not get the final armor upgrade on their skerms meaning they only have six pierce armor against heavy cav archers that have 11 attack skirmisher being 35 hp they're gonna go down pretty quickly now what's great for viper here is that he's been able to get three relics back to his base and that mr yo has not had a full-on tech switch into hussar yet mr yo was so squished back here he didn't really have space he's even running out of wood to uh to get something like hussar and hussar would be the key here to be able to take out the skirmishers and look at this for mr yo kind of an awkward clump of cab archers viper's gonna take every kill he can get viper just needs to make sure that he protects his economy and i think 41 on food is something the viper's gonna be disappointed in and look at this man he's gonna have a little bit of a trap in here i mean yo still could get some kills but go is not taking out gold units unless you count the gold miners and viper will take that over here in the north he's got a castle going up for map control so we can keep an eye on the stones and gold down here in the south he also sees some stones and gold in fact i'll show you viper's fog of war in a moment here mystery o is honestly this is a misplay i think he you need to run away or attack that gate escapes that are not fully built and go down pretty quickly yeah this is viper's point of view just toggle over and he can see a lot if you look at that mini map has a real good idea of what's going on and now he's hoping to make some some arbor list like look at all the skirmishers yes he trapped and everything and it's a masterpiece it's still viper's way behind in population it really is crazy how weak sicilians feel right now chain barting on the way or the chinese pro mr yo that rhymed didn't try it but i'll buy no i won't um i don't think he has hustler yet yeah it's just light cav but this would be the answer to the skirmishers i think that's also why viper is going to make some arms right carbs do a much better job against like have i think sicilians also lack thumb ring which is a big deal and if viper just doesn't know how to spend his gold units right now sergeants just don't feel like an option for him after losing so many dungeons and seeing the mass of cav archers look at that kd yellow has 100 more kills now and so viper's going to go for cavalier which i suppose might be the best way to spend your gold with this if he certainly has the gold 2 000 gold in the bank viper's still expanding his farming eco remember at this point his farms are going to have endless food with 43 on woody really needs to have more farms than that i suppose in theory you can afford to have more farms with sicilians than any other civilization because they don't have to refresh as frequently normally like 80 is the number that you want to shoot towards in these post-stem situations to spam like have endlessly but then you need to have a certain amount of wood to constantly refresh that but sicilians is not going to refresh all that much at all you definitely can change your eco balance with with sicilians viper now a little bit worried possibly that he's going to lose this side so impressive play from viper to get into a lead get those relics away from you utilizing the sicilian bonuses but now we're very much in a spot where yo is putting up a fight and yo was coming back despite viper's best efforts it's such a beautiful game to show the power of the sicilians but also the weakness of the sicilians and you know balance wise i have to i still the civ isn't super exciting for me but also it's not exciting that half these cavaliers aren't fighting for you as he fixes that but it's also i don't know it's just a weird it's a weird civilization i say props to the devs and exciting moves from the devs because there's a lot of this that seemed op when i saw the sieve and now i'm realizing okay there's certain aspects where sicilians can get a lead certain aspects of the sieve that can be op in some situations but good on the devs to give them some weird stuff like first crusade and not make them completely overrun everything same could be said for the burgundians uh viper sees that joe's on this gold and he's gonna snag that still has all of his production buildings here now we're just trying to trap down this freaking castle as viper's repairing repairing repairing repairing up to 60 farms now but 316 units lost for the viper now let's talk about yo's current gold income i mean even the wooden comes rough for him four and a half hours of idle time got some gold income there maybe a thousand maybe 2 000 gold remaining might be able to take this if he can cut viper off of this hill piper just trying to get the military numbers up again similar to malay uh britain's there's a lot of sieves that don't really rely on high hp units and they just rely on numbers and that's what viper is doing now 68 military just 30 military for mr yo and mr yoke starting to lose some ground so he's unable to take the castle out but yo desperate for gold has actually sold his stone you know when you sell your stone and post him that you're really desperate for gold because normally you want those castles on various areas of the map and just it's a great vision from the viper i mean he he obviously got to appreciate the the strategy to get the relics away from yo and take this map control but you have to execute as well and just look at this paying attention to this this was all intentional to hit the wood line and then he's got a group here and he's got a group here he's just going to starve mr yo out it's not glamorous it's not flashy like i don't know picking britons and going for arbalest would be with your micro but it is effective if you're able to just buy some time mr yo the late game master though does not want to tap out right now runs forward snipes those villagers and now is on the move so he's just he's in an awkward spot really where he has to have his main force and a clump viper can spread out he can hit three or four like half here three four lights have here it needs to get more light cap on the field i think and viper see look worried about this region this would probably be the better tc if you wanted to chop wood and farm with it but he's just dropping a protective tc right between the farms just in case the area gets raided and realizing that the town centers go up very fast with these sicilians just the small things are very impressive you know like mr yo sending in a hostage this is a good move for him viper now with how much military he's got 80 military could bait of getting scootage mr yo has escooted himself on over here now viper's about to take yo to school university university university that's right associates bachelors and masters over here for viper as he is using university foundations with all the wood that he's floating because he doesn't need to re-seed farms with sicilians and he's going to trap that beautiful massive cav archers from mr yo the poor mr yo is trying to move past here the tree's in the way piper's is cavalier and his light cover in their way and so many cav archers go down there and that's huge because mr yo doesn't have five relics anymore mysterio doesn't have a lot of gold control so there's no guarantee that he's gonna be able to get that mass up again took fight for some time but he tracked that the whole way in mr yo though 130 pops still not willing to call it quits but still feels doable with 45 farmers that he could push with hussart he's got hussar sicilians don't and viper has a lot of skirmishers out there i've seen mr yo playing late game so many times and it you almost have to forget about the staff and just look about the way the game is going because mr yo is able to find tiny little windows space to maneuver into enemy bases the fact that viper's got this exposed for example the fact that viper has this not walled up you will find those ways back in the games very dangerous player but it is looking increasingly likely that viper's going to be able to hold here and get this win despite not really wowing anyone watching this with the tools at his disposal now i had some cool episodes over the years like the viper plays tootins back when tutans were much weaker i might add light replace back from commercial week most of the civilizations and the viper plays videos i've had over the years were civilizations that were buffed at some point see what i said mysterio running in this way viper has the tc there look at that food count for viper i bet you he wishes he was for gundians especially he wishes that his food would turn into gold no it's 15 gold for military unit if he researches that unique tag i really say he's running low compared to yo but cerio's back out here is down here raiding this is what i'm talking about joe's hitting the proper spots he's in the back area of viper's ecos in the southern area viper's eco sicilians do get cdram however and so viper hoping to use his gold and his mass push yo a little bit back into his base and i say into his base but pretty soon like goes not gonna have a base barely take one over here he can barely take one over here yo can not afford to lose grounds viper also going into trash technology so he's going for helmet here now selling some of that food for gold and okay here comes the unique deck on the way the scootage upgrade for the viper and you'll actually see this in action and again i feel as though viper he's calculated a lot of this he's gonna get some walls down um but it's been well calculated because now he's at 100 military that's probably as high as you want to go you want your economy to be at 100 minimum i'd say and after that upgrade completes fight for now with a bunch of gold so he can make many more rams he's ramming down these workshop for yo there's a hole here for viper that's annoying unfortunately the tc in the castle's there but also mr yo is killing villagers down here right telling you mr yo will find ways to come back in the games but despite these small raids and i'll just show you what's happening as viper is losing more villes viper's main force seems too strong for mr yo to deal with the mix of skirms and arms ensures that both heavy cav archers and hustlers will struggle yo will have to focus down the rams and sea drams take a long time to kill piper has the gold now so he's going to have constant production of the rams and you have to expect the castle will fall then if the castle falls yo will probably also lose the stables and here viper also hitting the gold again and mr yo calls the gg and taps out and what an interesting game i think that this is almost always how sicilians have to be played be a bit greedy with the boom so you can get to the farms where the food lasts longer take advantage of the faster castle building time get a bit of a map control lead use the that food income to get the faster imperial go for first crusade and boom rush with some units in an ideal world take the extra golds and the relics with that time which is what viper did if you want to go for the crazy dungeons you can for map control but then you have to expect that you're going to lose a bit of control over the game because enemies probably going to have stronger units i mean imagine if it was like celts for you and he went for habadir and siege what on earth are you going to do against that i don't even think the monks are that strong for sicilians so it was well thought out for the viper and i'm actually going to pull up the timeline here and you can see the time windows that viper was able to take advantage of first off there's the kd it got better near the end for viper just because of the amount of units he had out there but the kd was not impressive for most of the game the food count is just off the charts for a 56 minute game it didn't have as much gold collected he did of course have more stone controlled right vision from viper but this is the timeline i'm talking about gaining a lead here with the boom because the tcs build faster gaining lead here with first crusade falling behind in the mid game because after first crusade you feel like you don't know what to do but eventually just out massing with what you can make and using that scootage unique tech to just just push a bit more with the extra gold so from a balance standpoint the sieve is the sieve is interesting and i feel like the sieve is kind of balanced i'm surprised to say this but like it feels as though the civilization is balanced because if they had strong options and they had first crusade then it would be too strong if it'd be too strong in every scenario if they had scootage and they had stronger options they're going to receive more gold income to continue to make those stronger options and then again in almost every situation it feels too strong so i still don't think the sieve is all that exciting from a unit standpoint but strategically it is very unique and it's fun as a caster because i can break down the time windows and hopefully i was able to do that throughout this game um i think i'm uploading this in the 25th or 26th of february the countdown's on for hidden cup for i'm really excited because the way hidden cup works is the first couple rounds are played as recorded games they're never shown live until the main event meaning that if let's say viper is i don't know what his name is going to be um let's say edward longshanks his viper's hero name and let's say round one he surprises and destroys the enemy with sicilians whoever viper plays in round two can't just see what happened in round one like any other tournament and say oh that person's gonna do that you get completely surprised all over again strategies are hidden all the way up until those finals at that point they would have seen some rounds on the live stream so like i'm not excited just for viper or hidden cup but when you have new civilizations and new maps which i'll touch on more over the coming weeks what's going to happen with sicilians is sicilians an actual option are brigundians an option and are there going to be all these time window strategies that players end up taking advantage of i like to say window a lot time window i think it is a good way of explaining how the game tends to work but anyways i hope you guys enjoyed this cast listen if you can't make it for hiddencov4 that's fine you might be tired of me talking about i'm sorry if that's the case but truthfully i mean hidden cup three was the biggest moment of my life uh i put in so much work for that and um it's my baby right and hidden cup four i've already surpassed the amount of hours put into it and it's just like i told my girlfriend today like i'm sorry but this is everything for me so yeah you're going to hear me talk about it once or twice more information to come youtube thanks for watching there will be some qualifier videos if you want to see what's been going on there as well as the big deciders soon have a good one leave a like on the video if you enjoyed the youtube only cast and there will be plenty more if that is the case uh later guys have a good one you

Channel: T90Official - Age Of Empires 2

Views: 125,951

Keywords: T90, T90Official, TheViper, Plays, Sicilians, Teutons, Bulgarians, new Civ, new civilization, farm rates, aoe2, age of empires, aoede, commentary, strategy, most annoying, fatslob, blue coffee, spiffing brit, broken, exploit

Id: AJeIKMLHkT4

Length: 39min 22sec (2362 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021